Saturday, April 15, Athens Cemetery, Parks and Recreation will partner with all veterans groups in Limestone County to clean veteran headstones at the Hine-Hobbs Cemetery in Athens. They will be joined by other civic organizations starting at 9 a.m. Saturday morning. The clean-up will end at 1 p.m.

“We are trying to get groups of kids to come help clean it with the veterans supervising,” Bob Borden with the Limestone County Chapter of Disabled American Veterans (DAV) said.

Volunteers are welcome to join in on the efforts. “They don’t need to bring anything. The Athens Cemetery, Parks and Recreation is providing all the materials — the gloves, the safety glasses and other materials. No metal objects, we are going to clean the headstone with either plastic of wood scrapers,” Borden said.

A special cleaning agent is used to clean headstones, and there is a limited amount available for the clean-up. Borden expects more clean-up’s to be scheduled in the coming year.

A clean-up was held at the Hine-Hobbs Cemetery last fall and due to an outstanding turnout, the headstones in the entire front half of the cemetery were scrubbed and cleaned as well as all headstones belonging to veterans. This clean-up will focus on the back half of the cemetery.

Several veterans organizations have joined forces for the clean-up efforts including the American Legion, Disabled American Veterans, Vietnam Veterans of America, AMVETS, Marine Corps of Limestone County, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.